In order to accommodate the increasing demands of television consumers, cable television (cable TV or CATV) broadcasters have transformed themselves in recent years to provide digital (as opposed to traditional analog) channels among their broadcast content. Cable TV broadcasters have employed digital technology to, for example, increase the number of offered channels, add per-channel programming information, and provide remote-interaction functionality such as pay-per-view (PPV) movies and sporting events.
As the benefits of digital cable television have become known, consumer demand has continued to rise, along with demand for increased variety of content. This demand for increased variety has reached the end-user level, where several users within a single household may prefer to enjoy different cable television programs simultaneously. Because digital cable television receivers, or set top boxes (STBs), were previously designed to receive only a single channel at a time, multiple simultaneous channel reception presented a problem for multi-user households.
Traditional solutions to this problem have included the provision of several receivers or STBs, each located in different rooms of the household. In this way, each television reception device, for example a television set, could be coupled to its own STB, and each user could independently receive and control reception of different cable television programs. These traditional solutions suffered from several disadvantages including increased cost of acquiring a plurality of STBs, increased space requirements for the additional STBs, need for additional household coaxial cable wiring, etc.
In addition to the above-mentioned disadvantages, traditional solutions lack the flexibility required to keep pace with new developments in consumer demand and diversification of that demand. For example, consumers now demand support for simultaneous reception and display of multiple television channels on a single television screen (e.g., picture-in-picture (PiP)). In addition, the emergence of personal video recorder (PVR) technology increases the demand for multi-channel reception capability. Many PVR's include the ability to tune one or more channels for viewing, while simultaneously tuning one or more additional channels for recording to a recording medium. The information on the recorded channels is then available for later playback or other processing.
Along with the ability to simultaneously tune multiple channels it would be advantageous for tuning equipment to include a networking functionality that would allow distribution of received content to various locations, such as various rooms within a residence. It would therefore be desirable to have a distribution network coupled to a multichannel tuner device. Furthermore, it would be advantageous if such a distribution network included a networking device that was integral to a tuner system, thus simplifying setup and maintenance of a network for the redistribution of cable channel content.
Consumers have begun to demand additional flexibility in the location of reception devices, including handheld personal media devices capable of remotely receiving digital television programs as well as digital music programs, without the increased cost of a plurality of STBs.